Many medical care providers utilize syringes in connection with flowable materials for the provision of medical care. For instance, syringes may be used as a container and delivery mechanism for delivery of medication to a patient or as a tool that is utilized during the preparation of a medication. In any regard, it is important to provide information regarding a syringe to users that may handle or use a syringe. Such information may be useful both within and external to a pharmacy environment. Such information may include, for example, information regarding the contents of a syringe or other relevant information pertinent to the syringe that is labeled.
Traditional approaches to pharmacy workflow often involve printing of labels that govern a user's workflow in the pharmacy. For example, the generation of an order for a medication may result in a label corresponding to the order being printed in the pharmacy. In turn, a pharmacy worker may use the label as a guide to determining what medication the pharmacy worker is to prepare. Furthermore, the label may be used to track the medication as a work in progress through the pharmacy. Once a given medication is prepared, the corresponding label that was initially printed in response to the order may be applied to the prepared syringe to identify the medication within the syringe and/or provide other information regarding the prepared syringe. A variety of information may be present on the label including, for example, an identification of the medication(s) contained within the syringe, a concentration of medication(s) contained within the syringe, a patient that is to receive the contents of the syringe, and/or a delivery time/date for the medication, among other possibilities.
Additionally, automated syringe fillers have been proposed that are capable of filling syringes in anticipation of use with a patient or in other medical care contexts. Oftentimes such syringe fillers perform batch processing wherein a plurality of syringes of the same size and containing a common medication are prepared in series. In this context, preprinted labels bearing information regarding the prepared syringes may be applied to the syringe. Such an approach may be feasible when a relatively large quantity of syringes of the same kind and size are prepared such that economical preprinting of labels may be performed for subsequent application to each of the syringes prepared by the syringe filler.